The other problem I saw was that the GUI didn't seem to get any keyboard input.

I wouldn't think that was a pervasive problem though, because the people doing the port would have seen it and not released it, or would have said something. Plus, I'd seen videos of the GUI running, so somebody'd gotten it working for the videos.

I realise that this isn't what it's designed for but I think it's a good way to get more people trying it so I think it's worth some effort. I get the impression that some people have been able to make it work but the instructions were too cryptic for me.

Debian is fine, and I'm learning far more about Linux than I ever imagined I would need to know.

I realise that this isn't what it's designed for but I think it's a good way to get more people trying it so I think it's worth some effort. I get the impression that some people have been able to make it work but the instructions were too cryptic for me.

Debian is fine, and I'm learning far more about Linux than I ever imagined I would need to know.

Fedora is a bleeding edge OS, they pride themselves on that, which does leave the average user with a problem. If you want stable from the Redhat line, try Centos; but with the Raspberry-Pi that will not help too much, as it too is bleeding edge.

If you want to play on the edge, you need to have a bit of savvy in the technology. I know Fedora has worked damn hard to get this OS ready for the Pi release, and if you expect perfection on day one, then I suggest you look elsewhere.

I seriously think that Raspberry-Pi has the right idea, our kids should not just play games on this technology, they should know how to drive it, just as when the "Motor Car" appeared, you HAD to know how to fix it, or spend a lot of money with those that did!

The way I see it is that the basic OS should not be a barrier to getting started. If the basic process of getting started is complex and difficult people will give up. We will have lost them before they even start.

IMO what's needed is an even learning curve. It needs to be a gentle slope to start with. It should not have any sharp jumps because each time we loose people.

If Fedora is bleeding edge then is it the right version? It needs to be easy and - to the gurus - boring.

I'm happy to help as a newcomer to Linux guinea pig. But will need help. Do people feel I should get more experience with Linux before diving into this?

Bleeding edge is great but,It does bleed. But I think thats half the fun. What fun is it ti install get everything perfect. Then what..... Its A better Learning curve to have a few problems/challenges along the way. Thats why i love linux. I think going for the kids is perfect. Kids will get into it.

Theyre will be a distro that will work out of the box! watch and see..

I don't know about others, but the way I am, I set out to do something, then do it. As of today, the only thing I've managed to achieve with Linux is… mess with Linux. It's sure fun and interesting, and I learned a bunch of things. The issue is, anything other goal that's not strictly "mess with Linux" I can achieve much more quickly, easily, reliably, pleasantly, even, in the end, cheaply… with Windows: for examplesetup a Torrent, dlna, backup, remoting… server.

The issues I stumbled into along the way are numerous, mainly me not knowing how to do stuff, not even knowing which terms to search for, nor, really, where to search for them, but also software not working as it should, non-existent/bad/out-of-synch docs… I mean, it took recompiles to get to a setup that only crashes about once a week, plus once or twice during every rsynch. And hours looking for how Upstart works (still haven't figured that one out completely.. how do I autolaunch at boot transmission and minidlna in their own "screen", or whatever screen's successor is (I forget). I still don't know why my samba setup works (kinda, it's several times slower than it should be), after hours trying to build a config file, i copy-pasted a barebones one from somewhere.

My point is, if people get a Pi to, say, learn Python, and have to spend hours installing, configuring, debugging, compiling… Linux, all the while looking for/at docs that may be out of date, non applicable, non-existent… they'll get frustrated and give up, as I would have done if UKScone had not come to my rescue when I wanted to setup a Linux home server. Needless to say, my Linux server is on borrowed time. The learning curve is just too steep and too long.

There's even a next step, which I hate to mention, of not only wanting things to Just Work, but to Look Cool, too. Think Apple: People, especially young ones, are always seeking validation. And regular people far outnumber geeks, so "hey look, I almost got my new computer to boot" doesn't earn nearly as many brownie points as "look at my Angry Frogs game". I think we need to get users to the Angry Frogs point as soon as possible. They'll come back and "mess with Linux" if/when they want to and energetically redefine the peer group they're looking for validation from.

@obarthelemy I totally agree with most of your points. Honestly, I have had some pretty bad Linux experences in the past. Most of them on the PC. My last install went pretty well though. I put Arch on a PogoPlug Series 4 and aside from a few issues which arn't too bad it works far better than the nice graphical software they gave me with it. I gave up some ease of use for far superior performance.

What is my point? I think that the uniformity of the hardware will make Linux painless for the users of the R-Pi after the initial kinks are worked out.

As far as I'm concerned the system should be a tool which I can use to make things. Other people may get their fun out of playing with the system. That's fine, we really need them !

I understand that this isn't at the stage I want, and I want to help achieve that. At present all I can do is identify things that as a newcomer to Linux I find difficult but occasionally I'll find something out which may be helpful. Unfortunately a lot of what I'm saying creates work for others and I'm sorry that's the case but I think it's useful because there will be a lot of people who are also newcomers. Experts will have difficulty even realising there is a problem.

Hope helps explain where I'm coming from. Sorry that it comes across as critical, but not sure how to avoid that.

True it is a tool but, the Pi i believe was started among other things to be a Edutool. I like linux b'cuz Im a tinkerer My system Always needs a little TLC but it runs fine. However I agree its not for production type work, not yet. But it may never be….However That won't stop Me. We live in a windows world but, I stay in linux ALOT.

I'm really looking forward to see what people do with this little PI. I think it will go far...

I've just got hold of a RPi board and I'm trying to get a Netgear N150 wifi dongle working. (It's also known as a WNA1100 dongle). It uses the Atheros AR9271 chipset, and it appears that this chipset requires the ath9k_htc kernel module.

I've just got hold of a RPi board and I'm trying to get a Netgear N150 wifi dongle working. (It's also known as a WNA1100 dongle). It uses the Atheros AR9271 chipset, and it appears that this chipset requires the ath9k_htc kernel module.

You might like to try the Debian build - that has better/more recent support I think.

You might need to recompile the kernel with the correct driver support - if that one is currently in staging its unlikely to be in the kernel build. I'll forward the details to the guy doing the Raspi kernel builds here and see what in it.

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@JamesH: I'll try Debian. I was using Fedora first as it seems to be the preferred distro from now on. Thanks for passing on the details. The WNA1100 dongle has been around for a while and was the cheapest one I could pick up in PCWorld. When the RPi goes on general release, it would be good if it just worked out of the box.

@pepedog: Thanks for the pointer. I'll investigate. It should need just the extra module, rather than a new kernel as well, but I'll see what happens.

2. In the shell, everytime I enter either my or the root user it says I must change the password but, it won't let me do this, as a background process keeps interrupting keyboard entry and even when I can stop the error message appearing between "login" and "password" (I've found any keyboard activity prevents the error stream - complains about XTC not found- assuming it because it can't find current time) it will accept a new password and then immediately forgets it knew it.

I'd like to get this working if possible as it natively recognises my WiFi dongle (RTL8192SU), which is more than the Debian package does.

I had the same thoughts smuggly. In fact I'm wondering if Seneca has bailed from the project? The Fedora distribution was a high-profile release and the recommended distribution by the RasPi Foundation.

But then the bug reports arrived and even the Seneca folks admitted that 2D rendering was not complete. Element 14 pulled the Fedora distribution off of its download site some time ago and now it has been removed from the official Raspberry Pi download site.

You might have thought that the recommended distribution would have issues corrected in a timely manner… not disappear… hence my conclusion that Seneca must have bailed. If it's true, then as a Canadian I am disappointed because there was quite a lot of press about their participation in the Raspberry Pi project over here.

I hope it's not true and they are quitely waiting for Fedora 17 and the education release of RasPi.